MACC urges vetting of prospective candidates for GE14

Its chief commissioner, Tan Sri Zulkifli Ahmad said although there was no law or compulsion for the political parties to do so, vetting could be done to ensure the candidates were clean and not tainted by corruption and abuse of power.

"The MACC is open in this matter and it is up to the political parties concerned (to take up MACC's offer)," he said at a press conference in conjunction with the Perlis state-level Anti-Corruption Road Tour 2017 (KEJAR '17) programme at Kampung Panggas, here, today.

Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Azlan Man, who was present, flagged off the KEJAR '17 convoy comprising 44 high-powered motorbikes and two buses carrying senior MACC officers on their tour series that began on Sept 18 and will end in Putrajaya on Oct 1.

According to Zulkifli, only the Barisan Nasional always sent in the names of their leaders and would-be candidates for vetting by the MACC while the opposition parties had never done that.

He assured that each vetting would be kept confidential and it would be up to the political parties whether to take further action or not after getting the findings.

"I wish to advise political parties contesting in the coming GE14 to get each of their candidates vetted as the public will be gauging their integrity," he said.

Zulkifli said the MACC was capable of doing the checking and vetting of all politicians even if it was asked to do so by all the political parties as their data were kept by MACC.

On cooperation with the National Anti-Corruption Commission of Thailand (NACC), he said the MACC and NACC had very good relations and cooperation, particularly in information exchange and in investigating cases of common interest.

Earlier, in his speech, Zulkifli said the MACC was the main pillar to turn to for the public when faced with the scourge of corruption and abuse of power by public servants or others.

"In this new era, each government department and agency must be governed with honesty and full responsibility. The people cannot be betrayed. I wish to warn here that we will not compromise with betrayers.

"Therefore, I will ensure that the MACC is a people-friendly agency, not feared and that its policies could reach out to the people and gain their support to achieve a positive shift in the fight against corruption."

He said the arrests made by MACC in connection with corruption since early this year was part of the agency's Anti-Corruption Revolution Movement (Gerah) whose membership had reached 60,000 since it was launched on Aug 1.